TAYLOR PATTERSON // FOX FODDER FARM

For Taylor Patterson, a life alongside flowers has evolved, like all the best gardens, with a mix of intervention and chance. She launched her floral studio, Fox Fodder Farm, 15 years ago out of her then landlord’s garage in Brooklyn, selling plants and arrangements at a local market. (The name is an homage to her parents’ farm in Delaware.) Early high-profile floral projects—including a wedding for the jewelry designer Pamela Love, which landed in Vogue, and look books for Gabriela Hearst’s first clothing line, Candela—established Patterson as a trusted collaborator among New York’s creative circles. “It was definitely a slow build to get where I am now,” she says, tying that longevity to the studio’s inclination toward raw beauty over fleeting trends. Patterson works with small foragers and growers when the seasons allow, letting whatever turns up—highway cosmos or Japanese anemones or “gnarly, craggy rosehip”—take center stage. In lieu of an overarching aesthetic, she says, “I would hope that it doesn’t feel like our work involves a lot of ego.” A few years ago, Patterson lengthened her commute by a few states, relocating to Delaware with her husband and two young children. Family is close by; her garden brims with dahlias and herbs and orphaned plants leftover from Fox Fodder jobs. Even amid the weekly back-and-forth to Manhattan, where her longtime team has just moved into a new downtown space, Patterson describes feeling balanced. “Where do I actually find the most comfort in this psycho world?” she has been asking herself. “And it’s weirdly in myself and the immediate environment around me—the people and experiences that add value.”

What projects are you currently working on?

The big project right now is the building in Tribeca that we’ve just renovated. It’s a weird little unicorn of a space—big and open with a garage pull-in and a walk-in cooler, but it’s also beautifully designed. It’s not going to be retail; it is our production studio and we’ll have parties there. The bigger project is: what is the business that we’re building? I know that’s very abstract, but in my industry it’s event to event to event. I could tell you that I’m going to Miami to do this business guy’s wife’s birthday, but that’s not very interesting to me.

Where do you like to spend time in nature?

I live next to a big state park in the Brandywine Valley, and there’s a lot of beech forest around my house. There’s something that just feels so old and humbling in these beautiful forests. The trees are all interconnected, and in the fall the leaves start to turn this rusty color. It’s a very serene atmosphere.

When do you feel most beautiful?

I can say with confidence that, at 41, I’m the most beautiful version of myself right now. That comes maybe with age—but also I think I’m the only one of my friends who hasn’t done Botox. I just haven’t gone there yet, and I don’t know if I ever will.

What activity keeps you unplugged from the internet?

Chasing children. My kids are two and a half and four and a half, so they’re getting into everything. My son, the younger one, is freakishly strong. He can open the refrigerator on his own and climbs up and just starts yanking things out of it, looking for yogurt pouches. I love my kids. They’re really fun—they’re kind of my favorite people to be around. This morning, we were out in the garden, picking flowers. When I’m spending time with my kids, I feel guilty being on the phone or paying attention to the internet versus them. I like to lose my phone, on purpose. I’ll put it somewhere and be like, “I’m going to forget that I put that there and I’m okay with it.”

What favorite plant or flower element do you live with at home?

I have so many flowery things in my house. I’m exactly who you’d think I’d be—I have little knobs on my cupboard that are shaped like flowers. Years ago, I bought these two little copper figures of fritillaria from Tage Andersen in Copenhagen. If there’s a florist I admire the most, it’s him and the world that he’s created for himself. I have a bunch of stuff from him, but those two flowers I really kind of love. They’re about eight inches—bigger than life-size—and I have them in a vase, like little sculptures.

Do you have a favorite smell in the plant kingdom?

My favorite scent in the whole world is daffodil—the big, fat, yellow ones that pop up early. It takes me back to being a kid in the simplest sense. The smell is really particular. It’s earthy and kind of dirty, not a heady floral scent at all and not sweet either. No synthetic fragrance in the world is able to replicate it. It reminds me of how people try to recreate that petrichor scent. You can’t really bottle the smell of rain. It’s the same with those first daffodils.

What artwork do you love that reflects the natural world?

It’s a watercolor by George A. “Frolic” Weymouth, called August, and it’s of a field of Queen Anne’s lace and weeds. It really embodies that late summer feeling. Before I moved back home, it was something for me that embodied where I’m from. This painting is home in a lot of ways. It lives in the Brandywine Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

When have you recently cried because something was beautiful?

We just did a wedding for a client whose house flowers I used to do 10 years ago. This was her second marriage—it was the most involved job we’ve ever done, and she really gave us a lot of creative freedom. While we were installing, I was alone in the truck outside the venue, and I heard somebody say my name. It was her housekeeper, who I used to sit and talk with at the kitchen table. She held my hand and said, “I’m so proud of you.” I broke down in tears. It was a beautiful, full-circle moment for us.

What is a good rule to live by?

You can’t really control things. This ties into my work with flowers and what I feel like I’ve learned from it. I mean, I’m a very controlling person. My nightmare is being too drunk in public; I hate being high because I feel like I’m losing control. But what helps me get through life is a certain aspect of just letting things be as they are and being okay with it—not trying to mold everything to the way that I would want it. It’s hard because there’s a lot that’s terrible happening in this world—and I do not accept that. But on the day to day, it’s accepting people for who they are and giving them the space for that.

How do you wind down for bed?

My bedtime ritual—honestly, I don’t really have one these days because I’m often falling asleep on my daughter’s floor. But at the same time, I quite like falling asleep on her floor. I won’t get to fall asleep on her floor forever. First, we brush teeth and read a story. Then we turn off the light, and we sing the Moon Song—Karen O's Moon Song from that movie Her. It’s my little ritual with both the kids before when I put them to bed. Jules doesn’t need me to stay in his room. Lou, the older one, has a big stuffed elephant, and she’s like, “Can you lie down on the elephant?” I’m often probably asleep before she is.